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by Elie Wiesel
A profoundly and unexpectedly intimate, deeply affecting summing up of his life so far, from one of the most cherished moral voices of our time.
Eighty-two years old, facing emergency heart surgery and his own mortality, Elie Wiesel reflects back on his life. Emotions, images, faces and questions flash through his mind. His family before and during the unspeakable Event. The gifts of marriage and children and grandchildren that followed. In his writing, in his teaching, in his public life, has he done enough for memory and the survivors? His ongoing questioning of God - where has it led? Is there hope for mankind? The world's tireless ambassador of tolerance and justice has given us this luminous account of hope and despair, an exploration of the love, regrets and abiding faith of a remarkable man.
"Starred Review. His pains linger, Wiesel writes, but "if I forget them for
a while, they quickly remind me of their presence." Just so,
a most memorable book." - Kirkus
"In summer 2011, at age 82, Wiesel had open heart surgery, resulting in five bypasses. Before the surgery, he reflected on key aspects of his life, to give us this brief but undoubtedly bracing study." - Library Journal
"Mr. Wiesel packages equal parts beauty and astonishing description in an impossibly concise manner. Few authors have possessed such capacity for succinctness and brevity with magnificent dexterity." - New York Journal of Books
This information about Open Heart was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Sergey Bermeniev
Elie Wiesel was born on September 30th, 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania, which is now part of Romania. He was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. His mother Sarah and younger sister Tzipora perished, his two older sisters, Hilda and Beatrice, survived. Elie and his father Shlomo were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died shortly before the camp was liberated in April 1945.
After the war, Elie Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist. During an interview with the distinguished French writer, Francois Mauriac, he was persuaded to write about his experiences in the death camps. The result was his internationally acclaimed memoir, La Nuit or Night, which has since been translated into more than thirty languages.
In...
... Full Biography
Link to Elie Wiesel's Website
Name Pronunciation
Elie Wiesel: eh-lee vee-ZEL
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